By George Robbins
Many franchises make up the market nowadays with video game franchises making up the largest part of the market. This is mainly due to the fact that games can take what has already been done, put a small twist on it, and then put it out again the following year. This has given them a massive edge when it comes to the competitive market and it has done just that over the years. What really makes people excited for these franchises is the fact that they become popular and then they maintain that fame by using what people love in order to carry the torch forward as time rolls onwards. Not many video game franchises have been able to maintain this level of fandom over the years, but one series in particular has managed to do just that and it is the Super Mario franchise.
The Super Mario franchise has been around for a very long time at this point and it has been a source of entertainment for countless generations at this point. Without the franchise, much of what people know about video games would be completely different and games today would probably not be the same. The franchise started something that very few franchises are actually capable of and they changed the way that people saw video games in general. Needless to say, Super Mario Bros. was a pioneering game for its era and it helped shape modern gaming as a whole. Therefore, it is a series that should be given the recognition that it deserves but has never really had before.
Although I say it has never really received the recognition it deserves before, it most certainly has, but not outside of the medium it was founded in. Super Mario Bros. has always found its home in the video game medium, but has never successfully found its place outside of that realm. This is mainly due to the fact that games don’t really translate well to movies. Not to mention that the only film ever made based upon the original games was a terrible dumpster fire live-action film that used terms from the game, but nothing else. Though now, it would appear that we may end up getting a film which actually does the games justice after all these years. To make it more appetizing and make it a lot less terrible than the live-action film, it will end up being an animated film.
Animated films are an excellent format for taking games which are already in an animated format and turning them into a watchable medium. Just because they are taking the right steps in a good direction with this doesn’t mean that it will end up being a good movie, but it most certainly gives fans hope moving forward. The movie is currently in development, and according to Nintendo’s Shuntaro Furukawa, the movie is still on track for its original release date. As of now, the film is supposed to have a theatrical release some time in 2022, so now Mario fans have something to hopefully look forward to in a couple of years.
By George Robbins
The movie industry is abuzz these days, though this is mainly due to studios and theaters trying to survive at the moment. Studios have every possible chance to make it through what is going on right now because they have long term investments in their films. Theaters on the other hand have a little less help being thrown their way because they need income on hand if they are going to stay in business. If they did not have any money saved up for some reason, theaters are going to have an extremely hard time ahead of them in the coming months. This is mainly due to the fact that theaters, at least in the United States, will probably have to shut down again in the near future.
This possible upcoming shut down stems from the fact that this past weekend was a terrible weekend for the movie theater industry. Despite having a strong opening weekend, Christopher Nolan’s newest blockbuster, ‘Tenet,’ had a pitiful second weekend with only $6.7 million. With such a huge film bringing in such a small amount to the box office on only the second weekend, it is no surprise that theaters are becoming nervous. This has shown them that people are still very wary of going out and staying in a public space with a lot of other people for hours at a time. This actually isn’t much of a surprise though, and it was really even expected given the state of the nation at the moment.
Needless to say things aren’t going so well with the movie theater industry as a whole and they are now rethinking their current strategies. Essentially, theaters are now thinking that they may need to hold off on having full reopenings for awhile until people are more comfortable being back out in public. At the very least, if they want their reopenings to be successful, they need to wait until there is a rhythm in place that people are comfortable with. So, in the near future, there is a good chance that theaters in the US will once again shut down for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, studios are trying to keep work moving along as they wait for the moment when they can have theatrical releases for their films again.
This is why studios are getting back to having their productions worked on to the best of their crews’ abilities. Hence we have been receiving plenty of news as of late about movies that have been going hard at getting their work done. Although production crews are trying their best to finish movies quickly, they are not rushing themselves the way they normally would. It is now less about getting the film done on time for release purposes and more about getting it done quickly so that so many people aren’t working on the same project for such a long time. Despite this change in view, plenty of work is being done efficiently as well as quickly.
Of course, there have still been plenty of setbacks, but now that a rhythm has been set, movies are getting worked on in record pace with a lot of them still holding scheduled release dates. Unfortunately, these dates are essentially tentative because there is no telling what will happen in the near future. The situation with movie theaters possibly closing up shop in the near future is further pushing back projects and could even result in release dates changing once again. This isn’t completely terrible with productions going back to work because it allows studios to start building up a back catalog. One studio that has been doing this for years at this point and is taking all of this in stride at the moment is Marvel Studios.
Marvel Studios is now a world renowned movie production studio for their production of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU. They have been making multiple films at a time for years, building up a back catalog in which they can keep films until their proper release dates. They usually don’t hold on to their films for a really long period of time, nor do they ever really have more than a couple of films stored up at a time. Unfortunately, they now have to hold on to every film they make until the proper time comes for them to release it. With theaters possibly closing up for awhile, this could be a long time, but it won’t stop them from making new films like they originally planned.
One of their upcoming films that will be worked on in the near future is James Gunn’s ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.’ This film is one that fans have been looking forward to for a long time now and it will begin production in the not too distant future. According to Gunn, it will completely change what we know about the superhero group and things will never be the same afterwards. Despite this, we know that we are sure to get an excellent movie out of the whole process. We almost weren’t going to see Gunn return for the final film and it would not have been the same. Due to a controversy based upon old jokes which didn’t age well online, Gunn was temporarily fired as the director for the film.
Although Gunn was hired back not too long after he was fired, he was picked up to direct DC’s upcoming spiritual sequel ‘The Suicide Squad.’ This upcoming movie is one that has received a lot of hype already because of what was revealed for it at DC FanDome. Fans and members of the film industry alike have already made it clear that the movie is what they were hoping for from the first ‘Suicide Squad‘ movie. Many fans were worried that Gunn going to work on a DCEU project would mean that he was not really going to be involved with the MCU any longer. Fans also believed that his going to work on one of their projects would create bad blood between Gunn and the people at Marvel Studios. This turns out not to have even been close to the case.
As it turns out, it is only really the fans who have contempt for one another when it comes to the whole Marvel vs. DC debate. Kevin Feige, the head of Marvel Studios, even went and paid Gunn a visit on the set of ‘The Suicide Squad’ to see how things were going and the two were noted as being very friendly with one another on set. In a further show of support between content creators, and to show that there is really no bad blood at all between the two groups, Gunn has even recently invited DC filmmakers to visit the set for ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ when they start filming. This just goes to show that a lot of what fans believe about the industry at this point is just all in their heads. There is no real reason for anyone to think that the two shared universes are at war with one another or anything like that.
By George Robbins
Movies are kind of in a bit of a predicament right now given the fact that theaters are having more issues than anticipated. So, originally theaters had their plans for their big reopenings over the course of the previous month. It seemed as thought this plan was going to end up working out in the end, but that seems to have just gone down the drain. Movie theaters have restrictions in place which bar them from having too many people in seats simultaneously. This didn’t really seem like it would cause too much of an issue given how much confidence theaters had not too long ago.
Now it would appear that theaters just don’t have any luck nowadays and studios are going to have to adjust to that fact in some way shape or form. Just recently, the movie ‘Tenet’ released and, despite having a strong couple of opening weekends, the movie hardly made any money this past weekend. With this in mind, it has become apparent to some companies that there is going to be a large period of time moving forward where movie theaters are pretty much going to be empty. There is no incentive for theaters to stay open because they will just end up losing money if not enough people come in. This still hasn’t stopped studios from trying to release their films though.
Studios have been doing their best to get their films out somehow in order to make their money, but their only real options right now are to delay or release digitally. While the latter option is one that has been relatively successful, it is not the one many studios want for their blockbusters because they want to get as much money as they can. Unfortunately this means that they will now have to wait because there are talks right now that theaters in the US may end up shutting down again due to low volume of customers. Therefore, the movie ‘Black Widow‘ is now on the list of films that will probably be seeing another delay in release date.
By George Robbins
Movie theaters have been doing their absolute best over the past few months due to the position they have been put into by the pandemic. They were all forced to shut down as soon as the pandemic was announced back in March. Ever since then they have been trying to come up with a way of drawing people back in while simultaneously coming up with plans for how they will open. Well they have managed to succeed in at least opening their doors back up again to the public, but there is a complication. The former issue of whether they can bring people back in or not is now beginning to rear its ugly head. Movies may be in even more trouble than they were in before.
Studios are having an equally difficult time because they need money in order to start working on their next projects. This is kind of an issue given the fact that they can’t even get people to come and see their films, but they can make up for it at least a little bit by selling movies straight to digital.This is a plan which has been working in respect to some films already and the success of VOD films has got studios thinking about what they will do moving forward. Unfortunately for theaters, they don’t really have this option because they need people to go out in order to make their income somehow.
This previous weekend in the United States was a wake-up call for theaters because it showed that people are still far too wary to go back out to such a public place so soon. Though the previous weekend presented a huge box office return, this past weekend only saw movies like the blockbuster ‘Tenet’ getting just over $6.5 million nation wide. This just shows that if a blockbuster is having issues, then what chance do other movies have when it comes time for release. Therefore, theaters may just end up having no choice but to shut down again. It is just way too early for them to be opened back up to the public again and this just shows that.
By George Robbins
As we have all been made aware of by this point, ‘Suicide Squad‘ was a disappointing movie that had various aspects littered throughout which went against itself. For the most part, the movie had no idea what exactly it was trying to be, hence we ended up with a film that made no sense. Well, in the grand scheme of things it made no sense, because the movie itself was actually supposed to be a grittier and more put together version of itself. Unfortunately for director David Ayer, this just doesn’t seem like it was meant to happen because of supposed studio interference. There would have been nothing wrong with a serious film, but the end result was something trying too hard to be funny.
Comedy has become something which is now pretty much ingrained in superhero movies as a way of kind of lightening the mood of the film. It ends up working a trick in the release of the film because it helps relieve tension. ‘Suicide Squad’ was given way too many scenes where the characters were trying too hard to make the audience laugh and it came back to bite the film critically. This is due to all of the comedy being added during reshoots to try and make the film appeal more to the masses. It appears that this will not be the case with the upcoming spiritual sequel ‘The Suicide Squad.’ Apparently, the comedy in that movie will be much more natural than it was in the first film, and therefore, funnier.
‘The Suicide Squad’ will make its premiere some time next August, barring any more issues in the movie theater industry. This time, the movie is being directed by ‘Guardians of the Galaxy‘ director James Gunn who is well known for making those films funny, yet serious films. It has become apparent that he will be giving ‘The Suicide Squad’ the same level of energy given what has been seen at DC FanDome for the film already. Not to mention the fact that actors related to the film, like Joel Kinnaman, have a lot of good things to say about the film. Kinnaman, who played Rick Flagg in the first film and will be making a return in this film, has said that the script for the new film made him laugh out loud when he read it and this makes it very appealing for fans moving forward.
By George Robbins
Franchises are a massive part of the creative industry as a whole and account for the largest part of the income made. They are what allow companies to expand to the furthest reaches of the world and invest themselves in every possible type of industry out there. This is why, unless the movie that was made was based off of something, you won’t just see merchandise crop up for random films. In fact, I think at this point, franchises make up most of the market at large solely due to the merchandising fact behind it all. It means that unless a franchise can be made out of something, a movie or game will more than likely not get made.
This sort of ends up working out for the consumer because it means that people are going to end up getting new content to play or view on a regular basis. One of the unfortunate parts of a franchise, however, is the fact that quality usually suffers as a result of the fact that something is constantly expected to come out. This makes it so that fans are always expecting things to carry on as they have and they expect the content to always be incredible. This has made it extremely difficult for companies to keep up with current demand as they can’t usually keep up with the high quality demand being asked of them. Thus, not many franchises actually end up succeeding in the long run.
Franchises have a couple of different paths laid out for them as time rolls on. They can take the heavy merchandising route where all they do is focus on the merchandise aspect and companies can sell content related to that franchise to make up for lost income. They can also be pretty successful and be able to keep people entertained as time goes on without declining in overall enjoyment. Another option is that they can go down both paths and they can be successful in multiple ways or they can do the opposite and fail miserably. Not many companies are capable of making franchises which can manage to do the third one, but we know of one that has done it already, Disney.
The Disney Company is one of worldwide renown which has cemented its place as a company which is most likely to last for an extremely long time moving forward. They might be catching flak nowadays because of everything going on with their new live-action movie ‘Mulan’ and their other business practices, but this won’t change anything. Disney is the type of company to bounce back after everything goes wrong for them, which is how they have succeeded so much after all these years. They are known mostly for the amount of effort they put into making their projects work which is why they are a perfect company for making franchises, which is exactly what they’ve done. Over the years, they have made many successful franchises.
They are unique in the fact that they don’t just have specific franchises, but their animated films grouped together are pretty much a franchise. Not only this but they can create franchises from their singular films that they produce for the public. This is why they have been able to make nearly every piece of content they own a success, but this mostly applies to animated films. When it comes to live-action films, Disney has to rely on already established content like the Star Wars franchise and their wildly popular Marvel Cinematic Universe. The later of which has been the most profitable purchase they have ever made followed by the purchase of the former franchise.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU, became popular immediately after the release of the original ‘Iron Man‘ film back in 2008. Marvel Studios was created in order to carry on this torch and they created a wildly successful franchise of films. This was very quickly picked up on by Disney and they began making a fortune based off of how popular this franchise became and we ended up with plenty of spin-offs as a result. Disney took that wild success and made it somehow even more profitable by using merchandising rights to make toys and other pieces of related content that they could sell. Needless to say, the MCU is still the most popular modern day franchise other than Star Wars which has had its popularity survive through merchandising.
Despite what is going on in the world right now, the MCU is still doing its best to carry on by making plans for upcoming filming for new movies. Among those new upcoming films is the third film in the ‘Ant-Man’ series of films currently named ‘Ant-Man 3.’ It is meant to begin filming some time in June of next year and it will have a 2022 release attached to it, at least as of now. Unsurprisingly, not much has been revealed about the movie thus far, but we now know that ‘Lovecraft Country‘ star Jonathan Majors has been cast for a role in the film. Reportedly, the role that he has been cast for has been revealed as the villain Kang the Conqueror who will most likely be playing the role of the main villain in the upcoming hero film. The only way to know for sure now is to wait and see.
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